Audition (1999) on Netflix
Seven years after his wife's death, Shigeharu Aoyama's friend, a film producer, stages a fake audition to find him a new wife. Among the applicants is Asami Yamazaki, a former ballerina.
- Netflix1.8/5
- IMDb7.1/10100,532 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes82%
Trailer
Plot summary
Shigeharu Aoyama's wife Ryoko dies of an illness, and he raises their son Shigehiko alone in Tokyo. Seven years on, the teenage Shigehiko asks his father why he never marries again. Shigeharu confides in his friend Yasuhisa Yoshikawa, a film producer, that he would like a new wife but cannot bring himself to approach anyone. Yoshikawa stages a fake casting call in which young women try out for a television series, so that Shigeharu can meet them while posing as a casting director. Going through the portfolios and the interviews, he is enchanted by Asami Yamazaki, a former ballerina who says her dancing career ended with an injury, and he asks her out.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Audition (1999)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The climactic torture scene did not originally include Asami's "Kiri-kiri-kiri" lines: Eihi Shiina was whispering her lines, and after talking with Takashi Miike they decided that having her say them would make the scene scarier.
- Eihi Shiina, a model who had not acted before being offered a film role while on holiday, learned of Takashi Miike through his film Blues Harp and was asked by him to play Asami at their second meeting, after they talked about her opinions on love and relationships.
- Eli Roth said Audition influenced him to make Hostel, and Takashi Miike appears in Hostel as a satisfied customer of the kidnappers who let clients torture their victims.
- For the acupuncture scene in which Asami pushes needles into Aoyama, special effects make-up built a mask layer over Ryo Ishibashi's eyes that the needles then pierce.
- Audition was the first Takashi Miike film to be released theatrically in the United Kingdom, opening there in mid-March 2001.
- Twin directors Jen and Sylvia Soska listed Audition as one of their favourite horror films and said it influenced their film American Mary.
